Starmer to speak with coalition of the willing ahead of Zelensky-Trump meeting
The coalition, made up of 30-plus nations, is prepared to deter Russian aggression by putting troops on the ground in Ukraine once the war is over.
The meeting, which is expected to take place at approximately 2pm UK time, comes on the heels of US President Mr Trump's summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Mr Trump hoped to secure a peace deal from the talks at a military base in Anchorage, but both he and Mr Putin walked away without agreement on how to end the war in Ukraine.
The US leader, however, insisted 'some great progress' was made, with 'many points' agreed and 'very few' remaining.
Several news outlets have cited sources which claimed that during the negotiations Mr Putin demanded full control of Donetsk and Luhansk – two occupied Ukrainian regions – as a condition for ending the war.
In exchange he would give up other Ukrainian territories held by Russian troops.
Other outlets reported that Mr Trump is inclined to support the plan, and will speak to Mr Zelensky about it on Monday when they meet in the Oval Office.
After the Alaska summit, the US president told Fox News it was now up to Mr Zelensky to 'make a deal' to end the war.
Sir Keir commended Mr Trump's 'pursuit of an end to the killing' following a phone call with the US president, Mr Zelensky and Nato allies on Saturday morning.
But he insisted Ukraine's leader must not be excluded from future talks to broker a peace in Ukraine.
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Times
a few seconds ago
- Times
The ball is in Zelensky's court but he is in an impossible position
The final stand for thousands of soldiers, rich in coal but ruined by war — no other territory in Ukraine has seen a similar toll as the eastern Donbas region. Its fate may now decide the future of the war during today's meeting in Washington. Ukraine has clung to this industrial heartland ever since fighting erupted there in 2014, when pro-Russian separatists first began to clash with Ukrainian troops and declared Donetsk and Luhansk self-styled independent 'people's republics'. Central to President Putin's war aims, after the full-scale invasion of 2022 the war in Donbas escalated into a huge battle of attrition, costing hundreds of thousands of casualties on either side, reducing settlements to rubble and swathes of land into territory reminiscent of the mud-churned battlefields of the First World War. Battles for Donbas cities such as Bakhmut became graveyards of Ukraine's regular and volunteer units as troops died attempting to stem human wave Russian assaults. Yet now, despite holding on to 22 per cent of Donbas — about 6,600 sq km of land — Ukraine may be expected to surrender its most fortified defence lines after Putin demanded that it hand over this remaining territory, including strategic heights and fortified cities, as a condition to ending the war. It is not a condition that President Zelensky is expected to be willing or able to accept. Politically and militarily, the Ukrainian president would be unable to cede the Donbas territory to Russia, even if he wished to, without leaving Ukraine in a more precarious position than the one in which it now exists. Even if Russia were allowed a long-term de facto control of territory it already occupies in Ukraine, Ukraine's constitution poses a complex challenge to any potential surrender of unconquered territory — or the formal de jure recognition of Russian control over land so far seized by Putin's troops. The constitution expressly prohibits the president from unilaterally authorising any territorial changes, stipulating that Ukraine's territory is integral and inviolable; that the protection of Ukraine's sovereignty is the most important function of the state; and that any changes in territory can only be decided by a national referendum called by the country's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Zelensky — who set the tone of his war leadership when he said 'the fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride' in 2022 while refusing a US offer of evacuation — has stated repeatedly that he would not agree to territorial concessions. 'The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine,' he said nine days ago in a video address, following the first remarks by President Trump that land swaps may form the basis of a peace deal. 'No one will deviate from this, and no one will be able to. Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier.' Zelensky's meeting in Washington, where he will be accompanied by the main European leaders, Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general, and Sir Keir Starmer, comes after Trump told allies that Putin wanted Ukraine's Donbas as a condition to ending the war. • Matthew Syed: We have failed Ukraine in every way, even with the words we use In what could mark a fulcrum point in the course of the conflict, Monday's meeting will also be the first time Zelensky and Trump have met since their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. It comes after the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska on Friday, where Trump suddenly abandoned his demand for a ceasefire in favour of a peace settlement that appears to hinge Putin's demand for the unconquered Ukrainian territory of Donbas. So far it remains unclear whether the proposals by Putin are part of an opening gambit marking a starting point for negotiations, or a final non-negotiable offer. Either way, the suggestion of giving up unconquered Ukrainian-majority territory, where hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians still live, to Russia, appears an impossible demand. 'Giving Donbas to Russia is legally, politically and strategically out of the question; and in addition it would cause serious division in our society,' noted Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of Ukraine's foreign affairs committee and member of Zelensky's Servant of the People Party. 'Our constitution forbids any division of Ukrainian sovereign territory.' Putin's offer to freeze the front lines elsewhere in return for all of Donbas apparently ruled out the possibility of a ceasefire until a comprehensive deal is reached. A ceasefire had been one of Zelensky's key demands, at a time when Ukraine is being struck daily by Russian drones and ballistic missiles, and Ukrainian troops are in slow retreat along key areas of the battlefield. According to sources with knowledge of the Russian offer who spoke to Reuters, under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — which both comprise Donbas — in return for a Russian commitment to halt attacks in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. In addition, Russia would give up tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine near Kharkiv and Sumy totalling around 440 square km, in return for Ukraine handing up the 6,600 square kilometres it still holds in Donbas. The same sources also reported that Putin was also seeking formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014. Militarily, even though Ukraine's battlefield fortunes are in slow decline, surrendering Kyiv's remaining territory in Donbas to Putin would involve ceding key heights and the fortified cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, allowing Russia an easy axis of advance into other areas of Ukraine if hostilities recommenced. 'The ground our forces still hold in Donbas is a bastion, well fortified, and a gateway to other areas of Ukraine, which could be used as an easy springboard by the Russians in any further attack,' added Merezhko. 'This land is not merely symbolic. It is strategically vital.' Economically, though Ukraine has already lost a number of key mines in Donbas, further loss of territory would also prove crippling. Until it ceased production seven months ago due to fighting directly above it, the coke mine outside the Donbas city of Pokrovsk was the country's only source of coking coal, essential for the steel industry. • Mark Urban: On the front line, Russia's warfare is more cunning than ever At the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine's steel production plummeted by 70 per cent to 6.3 million tons. According to industry analysts, if the Pokrovsk mine is completely lost the country's steel production would drop to 2-3 million tons: a fraction of its glory days. With so much to lose, and amid such a febrile political environment, as their president goes to face Trump in Washington, few Ukrainians have found reassurance in what followed the Alaska summit, with briefings alluding to security guarantees for Ukraine in the style of Nato's all-for-one 'Article 5' outside the Nato alliance. 'Do we really expect nuclear armed western nations to respond aggressively against Russia in the case of further attacks upon Ukraine, if we are not actually a member of Nato?' concluded Merezhko. 'We don't think so. 'We just hope that the European leaders can keep Trump focussed on the key issues when he sees Zelensky in Washington,' he concluded. 'Without European pressure Trump seems to wander off towards Russia, like a line in that song by Frank Sinatra, 'my fickle friend the summer wind'.'
The Herald Scotland
29 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Donald Trump is ‘not a force for good' London Mayor says
The Labour politician said remarks such as those were 'water off a duck's back'. However, he told an event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe it sometimes felt like he was 'nine years old again' and 'in the school playground'. But Sir Sadiq, speaking at the Political Party show with comedian Matt Forde, hit back at the US President, saying: 'Somebody who has views like he does about black people, about women, about gays, about Muslims, about Mexicans, thinks I'm nasty. 'Really. He is the leader of the free world, arguably the most powerful man in the world, and really.' He spoke out as he said that records showed since the middle of January this year – when Mr Trump began his second term in the White House – and July 'there have never been more Americans applying to British citizenship and living in London'. The Mayor said: 'So I think Americans have got good taste by and large.' He added that he hoped the President would come to London during his state visit to the UK next month, with Sir Sadiq stressing the 'diversity' of the capital was a 'strength, not a weakness'. Despite his comments about the US President, Sir Sadiq Khan said he would be 'happy' to meet Donald Trump (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Speaking about this diversity, he insisted: 'I think it makes us stronger not weaker, richer not poorer. 'And when President Trump says some of the things he does, it brings from the periphery to the mainstream, views that are potentially dangerous. 'He inadvertently – I'm not going to suggest he does it deliberately – he inadvertently could be radicalising people with views that could lead to them doing things that are dangerous.' He spoke out about fears that minorities 'could be treated less favourably because of the views of the President of the USA' as he accused Mr Trump of 'using London and our diversity as a political football, as a proxy for a culture war'. The London Mayor continued: 'On a personal level, it is water off a duck's back, but we can't run away from the fact that there are some really serious challenges we face as a western society and President Trump, in my view, I speak generally, isn't a force for good.' However he insisted that he would be 'more than happy to meet President Trump' saying he would seek to show him that it is 'possible to be proud to be a westerner and a proud to be Muslim, that it is possible to be British, and proud to be British, and be of Pakistani origin and be a law abiding citizen and we aren't three headed monsters'. The Labour politician said: 'I suspect President Trump may have formed a view of Muslims because of the actions of a small minority of really bad people who are terrorists and use Islam in a perverted way. 'What I would want President Trump to know is that is a very small fraction of Muslims across the globe. 'So if there was an opportunity to meet President Trump, I would be more than happy to do so.'
Times
34 minutes ago
- Times
Trump dropped ceasefire demand ‘because so much progress was made'
President Trump dropped his demand for a ceasefire in Ukraine because so much progress had been achieved in negotiations with Russia, his special envoy Steve Witkoff has claimed. Trump had insisted before his meeting with President Putin in Alaska that he would walk out if Russia did not agree to a ceasefire, and he faced widespread criticism in the United States over the weekend for apparently backing down from this demand. In a series of posts on social media on Sunday, the president said he 'had a great meeting in Alaska' and complained that 'if I got Russia to give up Moscow as part of the Deal, the Fake News and their PARTNER, the Radical Left Democrats, would say I made a terrible mistake'. Witkoff, who was present at the meeting, claimed that the lack of a ceasefire deal showed how much progress had been made during the negotiations.
